[stylist] Snow Shovelin' Blues - prompt response

Fri Feb 3 18:18:02 UTC 2012

Chris,
Boy, does this remind me of when I had a house in town. It always happened
that way -- the plough coming along just after you've finished shoveling and
have no strength for any more. I suppose that there's a good explanation of
why the shovels are 20 inches. I'll ask around. Also, it was nice to know
that some other writer uses a wrist pad. 
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Chris Kuell
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 10:16 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] Snow Shovelin' Blues - prompt response

Snow Shovelin' Blues

".So be careful, folks-it's a mess out there."

I shut off the clock radio and threw on some clothes. Great. Last night they
predicted one to three inches, and this morning we've got eight. After
pouring a bran muffin and half a pot of hot coffee down my gullet, I found
my hat and gloves and stepped out into the crisp morning air. 

I breathed deep, enjoying the cold burn in my lungs. The world was
beautifully crystalline white, and now it was time to carve a path through
it.

My trusty snow shovel was right where I'd left it--behind the Adirondack
chair I meant to put in the garage last fall. I whistled, Joy to the World
and cleared the porch and front steps. I was building up some heat, so I
unzipped my jacket about six inches and worked on the path to the driveway.
The air temperature must have been above freezing, because the snow was
dense and heavy. Real heavy. Every few minutes I had to pause, stretch the
kinks out of my back and take some deep breaths. Shoveling is hard work, but
I really enjoy the cardiovascular  exercise. Feels good to use the old
muscles.

Fifteen minutes later, I'd cleared about a dozen feet and had maybe twenty
more to go. My muscles were starting to complain a little, saying they
preferred to just rest on a wrist pad and exercise by striking the keyboard.
But, I kept going. Finding the right angle, push forward a foot and a half,
then heave the shovelful over to the side of the driveway. Release was
critical, as you didn't want to fall short and toss the load back onto the
driveway, or waste energy by tossing the twenty-five pounds of frozen fun
into your neighbor's front yard. After five more feet, my heart was beating
faster than a bunch of ex-girlfriends at Tiger Wood's back door. Time for a
new strategy.

I tried the snow plow method, holding the handle of the shovel with both
hands out in front of me and running like I was the snowplow. It worked
great for about three feet, then the shovel stopped but my body kept going.
The handle of the shovel jammed into my crotch, I sang soprano for a few
seconds and had to take a five minute break.

Blade down, push, lift and throw. Blade down, push, lift and throw. I wonder
who invented the snow shovel? Ingenuitive as it is, it had to be a New
Englander. Probably some poor sap who had a boss who didn't want to get her
pretty boots wet. Maybe he tried various techniques before coming up with a
spade, which could be redesigned for the job. But, why twenty inches wide?
All snow shovels are twenty inches-not sixteen or eighteen or twenty-one.
But twenty on the nose. And the handle at the top, that little addition was
pure genius. Blade down, push, lift and throw.

I kept listening for the road is it slowly approached. Ten more feet. Eight
feet. Five feet. I was stopping to breathe and ram my fists into my lower
back to ease the discomfort about every two minutes now. I wonder how much
snow blowers cost? Probably a mint at this time of year. Blade down, push,
lift, groan  and throw.

The end of the driveway was as bad as I'd feared. Instead of eight inches of
heavy, wet snow, I faced a mountain of maybe twenty-four inches of
hard-packed misery. I stretched my back again, voiced a few silent curses at
the snow plow for leaving me this undesired chunk of winter, and went to
work. I chopped and hacked and beat and shoved and cried my way through that
unforgiving glacier as my tight hamstrings, shoulders  and lower back
threatened to stop functioning if I didn't cease and desist this activity
ASAP. But, finally I finished. The corners could have been done better, but
after an hour and a half of shoveling I couldn't move one more spoonful.  As
I dragged my tired body towards the walkway, Molly-the-Mail-carrier stomped
her way across my neighbor's yard toward me.

"Morning," she said, voice crisp from the cold. "You feeling okay? You're
bent over like my grandmother when she's carrying a bag of cement."

"I'm fine," I told her. "Back's a little sore from this damn snow."

"Ever consider massage therapy ?" she said. "Lugging this heavy sack of
catalogues through this stuff isn't any picnic, either. My guy Hans is a
God-send. He'll get your muscles singing a happier tune in no time."

The thought of a guy named Hans rubbing my muscles didn't exactly light my
fire. "He wouldn't have a sister named Gretel in the business, would he?" 

An ugly, metallic groan cut the morning stillness about a block away. We
both turned at the dreadful sound. Big and heavy, a powerful diesel engine
roared like a T Rex through the quiet of the neighborhood. It pushed
half-a-ton of cold, steel blade as it plowed through Mother Nature's mess.

"No!" I shouted, waving my arms frantically. "No! Please! No-o-o!" 

- chriskuell

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